The Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), once the flagship initiative for climate action in the global banking sector, is no more. The UN-convened group has officially announced its immediate termination, marking a dramatic failure for one of the most high-profile voluntary corporate climate commitments.
The alliance’s journey from flagship to failure was accelerated by a hostile political takeover in the United States. The re-election of Donald Trump on an aggressive pro-fossil fuel platform empowered an “anti-ESG” movement that put member banks directly in its line of fire.
The first to abandon the sinking ship were its captains. The six largest US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, all resigned from the alliance in a coordinated move to insulate themselves from political attack. This mass desertion left the NZBA fatally wounded and without its core leadership.
The damage was irreversible. The departure of the American banks created a crisis of confidence that spread internationally. Lenders in Europe and Japan began to withdraw, and the recent exits of British financial stalwarts HSBC and Barclays confirmed the group’s complete collapse.
The legacy of this failure is now being written. Some see it as a story of corporate cowardice, a retreat from responsibility when the going got tough. Others view it as the inevitable demise of a “greenwashing” exercise that was never fit for purpose. For this latter group, the NZBA’s failure is not an end, but a beginning—the start of a renewed push for binding financial regulation.
